Mexico City – Felipe Calderon grew up as a play-by-the- rules, straight-A student who loved soccer and learned to shake hands and go home when the whistle blew.

His opponent in the presidential campaign loved baseball and settled disputes on a dirt field with fist-flying brawls.

Now with the 2006 election declared over, a defeated Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is charging off the mound and threatening to draw all of Mexico into the fight.

Using incendiary speeches and force of personality, Lopez Obrador has persuaded more than a third of the country that Mexico’s July 2 presidential contest was manipulated to ensure Calderon’s win.

His critics say that along the way, he has inflicted severe damage on Mexico’s still-fragile democratic institutions, including the electoral tribunal that on Tuesday declared Calderon the winner.

Since the election, Lopez Obrador has rallied supporters to demand a recount of the election, bringing them out into the streets to pitch their protest camp in Mexico City’s central square and along its main boulevard.

President Vicente Fox and much of Mexico have stood by waiting for the protest movement and its tent city to fold under the weight of summer rains and the scorn of citizens angry over traffic jams and lost business.

But Lopez Obrador sees the declaration of his defeat as one in a long line of corrupt acts by Mexico’s elite, aides say. His political history provides little indication that he will back away from the confrontation.

In 1994, Lopez Obrador lost the governor’s race in his native state of Tabasco. The protests he staged then lasted more than a year. He only dropped the campaign when he took over as president of the Democratic Revolution Party in 1996.

There appears to be no similar exit this time.

President Fox has three months before Calderon is scheduled to take office and, in theory, could use that time to find a graceful solution.

But Calderon’s advisers and outside analysts agree that Fox has been passive during the summer and has so far shown no sign of taking a more active role.

“There is little Fox can do to keep from leaving a mess for Calderon,” said Pamela Starr of Eurasia Group, a risk-analysis firm. “I don’t see the opposition weakening over the next three months, and the option of trying to crush it will only strengthen it.”

Instead, the two sides appear to be maneuvering in ways likely to deepen their confrontation.

The standoff means Calderon’s promise of remaking Mexico from a country that millions of citizens desire to flee is going to be especially tough.

At the same time, however, Lopez Obrador may have succeeded in forcing Calderon to focus attention on the country’s social inequalities.

Calderon’s advisers say they know they must pass some kind of high-profile legislation to address the misery of the poor if they want to contain Lopez Obrador’s popularity.

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